1977: Year in Review
Looking backward from 2009-12-20.
Memorable Events
- 1977-02: A very cold winter haunted Pittsburgh this year, with temperatures routinely falling below zero at night in February. On one such cold weekend, the Altoona bus could not make it over the mountains to take us home until Saturday morning. They normally came on Friday afternoons. So, a bunch of us ended up staying at the School for the Deaf on Friday night.
- 1977-o3-17: Pap Jewell’s last birthday. His health had been in steady decline for some time, as he slipped further and further intot he death grips of uncontrolled type 2 diabetes. But he felt good enough to attend a big birthday bash held in his honor, at the bar next door to here. It’s gone now, and only tall weeds grow where its mini ballroom with the hard wood floors once stood. I just found pictures of this event the other day.
- 1977-04: I asked [Shaina], my third love, to attend my first high school prom with me. This was in fact, probably the first time I’d ever asked a girl out on a real date.
- 1977-05: I spent lots of time out on the boys side playground lawn swings at WPSBC as the weather warmed, with my portable and quite harsh-sounding GE AM & FM radio.
- 1977-05: The tenth grade class this year (my class) conducted an all-day car wash event to raise money for the prom. We “contracted” a few staff members to assist us in driving the cars of the other employees to the work area, between the electronic shop and sheet metal shops.
- 1977-06-03: I completed my tenth grade year on this Friday. Actually, the school year did not officially end until sometime the following week. But my parents allowed me to begin my summer vacation early since there wouldn’t be too much going on academically that least week anyhow. However, looking back, I wish I would have attended that last week if for no other reason, than to steal occasional glimpses at [Shaina] when she’d periodically come into the kitchen where I was working, to give me dirty pots and pans from the dining room to wash.
- 1977-06-03: I attended my first high school prom. This would turn out to be the most memorable of the three proms I participated in during my schooling at WPSBC, in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. For being my first real date, [Shaina] really stole the show that night; staff chaperones were asking me if I minded if they danced with her. [Shaina] was the first girl since [Molly] who got me to completely forget about [First Love].
- 1977-06-04: I fell in love with [Shaina]; it happened in a dream. With memories of the prom the previous night ringing through my mind along with how lovely she looked, the circumstances created the perfect chemical reaction; one minute I thought of her as a friend, and the next, I had fallen madly in love with her.
- 1977-06-15: The neighbor boys and I set up our summer cabin in their garage for what would become the last time. This would be the first summer that the cabin lasted the entire summer, without us getting into fights and ending it early.
- 1977-06-20: [Shaina] knew how I had come to feel for her. But being twenty-one years old, some five years older than me, we really had no future. So she told me this in a letter, which I received on about this date.
- 1977-08-27: Visited Hershey Park for the first time.
- 1977-09: I began my eleventh grade year at WPSBC. I roomed in the high school boys’ annex for the first time, and the school now operated a low-power AM and FM radio station; WPSB AM 1200 and WPSB 89.9 FM. I still have a couple reel-to-reel tapes of a few shows I DJed there this year.
- 1977-09-10: My grandfather Jewell passed away. I held back the tears pretty well at his funeral. But later, back at home, I cried profusely, for a couple hours. I still miss him today, and am grateful that he helped push me into the life I enjoy today.
- 1977-09-15: I began attending Schenley High School English classes for the first time.
- 1977-11: Some of us were selected to participate in a ski class. We met once or twice a week, starting in October, and when the snow finally came, we went to Flagstaff Hill to practice cross-country skiing and to learn how to get our legs into the wedge position in order to stop moving quickly.
- 1977-12: I worked the WPSBC Christmas tree sales fundraiser for the second time.
- 1977-12-19: The workers on the tree project all wished me a happy birthday and I think we hung out that night, watching TV and drinking Lemon Blend.
- 1977-12-25: Sister Christine got a stereo record player for Christmas. We heard it a lot that holiday season, as she enjoyed playing Dolly Parton’s song, Here You Come Again quite a bit.